Artist Interviews - Conzpiracy

Prior to working with digital, I used to draw all the time - mainly using inks and biro. I was influenced by the works of Clive Barker, comic books, horror movies, virtuoso's like Giger and the illustrators of 2000AD.

I started working freelance at 15, literally my first year of Photoshop practice - producing event flyers for Drum n Bass events in my area. My work was rubbish and I was getting paid peanuts, but it put me in good stead to learn people skills and the pressures of working to deadline.

As a photo manipulator, you have to imagine the possibilities beyond a stock image. I am drawn to beauty, but in a more 'haute-couture' sense as opposed to overtly sexual. Angular poses work great for composition. Im a very selfish designer, I tend to do what the hell I want most of the time!

Sometimes an image is selected specifically for a brief, be it DA or premium - but it's more often than not based on the underlying potential for great art.

The edge that DA has over every other free stock provider, is the sheer number of figurative images available. You don't get that at SXC or anywhere else, it's an amazing resource. As far as Im concerned, the stockers should produce whatever they want.

As a commercial artist, I'd love to see more unrestricted stock.. Sometimes it's a little jarring to find the perfect piece, but it comes with 60 sub-clauses on it's useage. I understand the concern about violent / pornographic imagery - but some stockers take their rules a little too far!!

Photo Manipulation is my passion, I created the website to share techniques with my peers and newcomers to the artform. It was a project I had been nurturing for some time, and I finally got it together and submitted it as the final project for my Digital Media degree.

There's a million Photoshop websites out there, I wanted to produce a site that is dedicated solely to the fine-art applications of photo manip. I have commend the work of the team KirenBagchee & EveLivesey, who produce amazing content.

Well this won't bode well, but I'd recommend giving premium stock a try once in a while. If you feel that you would like to stand out from the crowd, sometimes you have to step away from DA and put your hands in your pocket. It depends on how serious you are, but the microstock sites allow you to get individual images on a credit basis.

Aside from DA, I use Fotolia loads.. I get the real juicy stock that very few have used, however I use DA almost exclusively for tutorials and examples.

Short answer, a bit of both. Sometimes I will be doing a personal piece, see a really engaging figurative image and just think 'I have to work with that!!' and create a concept around it.

On many occassions I am seeking out a piece that works with the typography of an existing composition.

In my work, I love delicate figures contrasted with implied violence / horror.. The works of Reine-Haru are great, not only for her beauty, but also the pre-raphaelite aesthetic that she achieves with her works. These are all pretty famous, so not being very original!

My favourite stock artist of all time is definitely George Mayer though, he achieves the greatest balance of attitude and elegance Stock by George Mayer

First and foremost, it's quality. Is the image exposed correctly, well lit and at a large enough size to work with at print resolution. Nearly everything I do is at a minimum of A4, so that rules out huge swathes of great stock

Uhm.. A ginger and cinnamon cupcake with little cenobite designs done with the icing.